Right now I am playing with the new PS95 16x19, with this specs:
350gr
BP: 33,2cm
SW: 362
It's a dream to play with...

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Yeah, I meant match the 95 and 100 to the 90 specs. Lots of people seem to think the new 90 is a really good frame with specs very similar to the PS85. Lots of people also think the feel of the 95 and 100 is very good but complain about the low weight. I'm just wondering if anyone has matched all three and made an apples to apples comparison.

Yeah, I meant match the 95 and 100 to the 90 specs. Lots of people seem to think the new 90 is a really good frame with specs very similar to the PS85. Lots of people also think the feel of the 95 and 100 is very good but complain about the low weight. I'm just wondering if anyone has matched all three and made an apples to apples comparison.

The mold/constrution/stiffness of these 3 rackets is different, so the fell will allways be different.

Even with 2 rackets from the same mold, they could feel different, just because they can differ in stiffness.

Another important thing is the pattern, in a 90" the spaces will be allways different in some parts, from the others.

Swinging a 90" will allways be different than swinging a 95" or a 100" racket, even if they all share the same specs.

... so, they will never be same

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Of course they will still be different racquets even if the specs are made to match. But how good could they be if made to match a true Pro Staff spec?

Anyway, it's something I'd like to try but don't have the time. I was thinking some other aging Pro Staff afficianado might have tried it. The lighter 95 and 100 Pro Staffs have been largely written off because they are so light. But that's an easy thing to fix. I'm really curious how the 100 would play if brought up to player's spec.

Corners, Im on it, I have a 95, taking suggestions on how to build it.

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Good man

I reckon you've got two nice smooth avenues:

1) Match it to its little big brother, the Pro Staff 6.1 90. People really seem to enjoy the lower swingweight of this version compared to the K and BLX90s. The specs (354 grams / 31.5 cm balance (9HL) / 324 swingweight are very similar to the Pro Staff 6.0 85 after all.

Add 7 grams at 12 o'clock. Two layers of 3.5" strips starting either side of the two center mains. (If you're not worried about restringing then go 2 layers of 7" strips centered.

The 95 has a higher twistweight stock (lots of mass at 3&9 to try and compensate for the low swingweight, I guess) than the 90. So adding lead at 3&9 would make it pretty sluggish, especially for someone grooving on the VCore 95.

To counterbalance: 21 grams 4 inches from the butt. This is the hard part. The stock grip is already as heavy as leather, so that easy route is closed. Best way would be to inject silicone in the handle, but that's quite a production. Another option would be to wrap 11 grams at the top of the handle and cram 10 grams of tape (or some fishing weights!) inside the buttcap trapdoor. Kind of a pain, and that's why Wilson uses metal rods inside the handle and metal plates under the handle foam to do their counterbalancing. You could always tape on a padlock

Edit: No, no. No padlocks required. Just take off the stock grip and wrap 84 inches of 1/4" leadtape (or 42 inches of 1/2" tape) from just above the buttcap to the top of the handle. If you're careful you'll get a nice smooth wrap because the tape is maleable enough to spiral without overlap. Then put the grip back on. The handle will be a little bigger.

2) Match it to your 95d. This is much easier because we don't need so much handleweight:

5 grams at 12 o'clock
+
6 grams inside the trap door. 6 grams of folded lead tape fits nicely inside the trap door. Just fold it so that it fits into the little "box" shape of the inside trap door cover. The thick Babolat 1/2" tape is really nice for this, but you could do it with regular tape too - just takes a bit more time. It there is any space left over between the lead inside the trap door cover and the black plastic end of the hairpin just cut a little piece of overgrip so it spaces the gap and prevents any vibration.

Gee, the second mod sure does look easier. Wilson should have put a lighter stock grip on the 95, which would have made it much simpler to bring it up to 90 spec by slapping leather on.

Why add 50+ grams to a 326 gram racquet if you're trying to match it to a 355 gram racquet?

Anyway, the calculators are awesome, but with matching problems like this the challenge is getting all that mass onto or in the handle. Actually, laying lead strips, or spiralling lead tape under the stock grip is probably the way to go. I've edited my first post above.

Why add 50+ grams to a 326 gram racquet if you're trying to match it to a 355 gram racquet?

Anyway, the calculators are awesome, but with matching problems like this the challenge is getting all that mass onto or in the handle. Actually, laying lead strips, or spiralling lead tape under the stock grip is probably the way to go. I've edited my first post above.

I've got a PS95 and PS100 that I'm finding a little light (previously used a K90).

Never bothered modding frames previously, and think the idea of digging out the foam/silicon/wrapped lead tape etc was all a bit messy. I've purchased a range of stainless bolts (M8 and M6 guage, from 40mm to 100mm in 10mm increments), will drill out an equivalent hole through the foam, and slot them in there. The best part is I can just swap the bolt out for a shorter or longer one to vary the weight (there's only 3-4 gm between each size).

On the 95/100 - seems to me they're both ideally spec'd to beef us - majority of weight in the handle (one larger stainless bolt, or two smaller/narrower ones), and a little at 12 (or little more at 3&9) to up the swing weight......

I've got a PS95 and PS100 that I'm finding a little light (previously used a K90).

Never bothered modding frames previously, and think the idea of digging out the foam/silicon/wrapped lead tape etc was all a bit messy. I've purchased a range of stainless bolts (M8 and M6 guage, from 40mm to 100mm in 10mm increments), will drill out an equivalent hole through the foam, and slot them in there. The best part is I can just swap the bolt out for a shorter or longer one to vary the weight (there's only 3-4 gm between each size).

On the 95/100 - seems to me they're both ideally spec'd to beef us - majority of weight in the handle (one larger stainless bolt, or two smaller/narrower ones), and a little at 12 (or little more at 3&9) to up the swing weight......

Easy as pie....

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Just be careful your bolts don't touch the inside walls of the handle or the metal bars Wilson puts inside their handles, otherwise you'll get a rattle or funky vibration. The metal bars span the gap of the cavity, usually about 1/2" from the butt end. But maybe they didn't need to put them into the lighter Pro Staff models.

Hi Fed, have you ever gone ahead with this? I would be very interested to hear your verdict!

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I tried it, man. So disappointing. The racquet is just weak. Inferior to the 90, inferior to the vcore95, inferior to the pure storm tour. If you want a fedesque stick in 95 you are better of hitting the bay for old 95 or ultra fpks.

I tried it, man. So disappointing. The racquet is just weak. Inferior to the 90, inferior to the vcore95, inferior to the pure storm tour. If you want a fedesque stick in 95 you are better of hitting the bay for old 95 or ultra fpks.

This suggests that in terms of EFFECTIVE headsize, the PS95 would actually be LESS forgiving than the PS90! Does that tally with your experience, Fed? Of course, if you lead up the PS95, its sweetzones will increase, but stock we're talking differences of 10-75% in favor of the PS90 here...

I was surprised to find that at the middle of the stringbed (21 inchfrom buttcap) TWU lists the PS95 as only 0.16 of an inch wider (4 mm) than the PS90! Could anyone who has access to both rackets check this? Much appreciated!

This suggests that in terms of EFFECTIVE headsize, the PS95 would actually be LESS forgiving than the PS90! Does that tally with your experience, Fed? Of course, if you lead up the PS95, its sweetzones will increase, but stock we're talking differences of 10-75% in favor of the PS90 here...

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The sweetzones are primarily a function of swingweight, with twistweight and stiffness coming in a distant second and third. The TWU Power Potential data shows that there is a nice, tidy relationship between swingweight and Power Potential of 10 swingweight units = 1.0 Power Potential units. Looking only at the sweetzones (20%, 30%, 40%) makes it hard to compare sticks with very different swingweights. If you switch to the location view, you see that the 90 has Power Potential of 41.2% in the center of the stringbed and the 95, 38.8%. The swingweights of the specimens tested were 324 and 303, respectively. So we can add 2.1% to the 95's number to get 40.9%. In other words, this is what it would be if we added lead tape to bump the swingweight to 324. So matched, the 95's PP is slightly less than the 90, which is probably down to the slightly lower stiffness of the 95.

So the numbers are actually about what you'd expect. You can do the same addition at other impact zones above, below and to the sides of the stringbed center to project what the Power Potential would be with lead tape added, but it because a less precise approximation outside the center due to how twistweight and local stiffness change depending on lead tape location.

Anyway, Fed K's perceptions seem to belie all this, but then again he may be experiencing and reporting something quite different from the objective quality of Power Potential (Apparent Coefficient of Restitution).

I was surprised to find that at the middle of the stringbed (21 inchfrom buttcap) TWU lists the PS95 as only 0.16 of an inch wider (4 mm) than the PS90! Could anyone who has access to both rackets check this? Much appreciated!

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Yeah, I would like that too. I don't think the measurements for the 90 are correct. I know the K90 measurements are correct, and TWU has that .25 inches narrower 21 inches from the buttcap than the PS90. I haven't measure the PS90, but I've seen them and didn't notice any difference in headshape.

I tried it, man. So disappointing. The racquet is just weak. Inferior to the 90, inferior to the vcore95, inferior to the pure storm tour. If you want a fedesque stick in 95 you are better of hitting the bay for old 95 or ultra fpks.

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I tried the BLXPS95 first when it first came out -didn't like it one bit.

Tried it again a few days ago - found it to be a very solid frame, one that I will continue to demo. I am, however, weary in doing this since I'm aware of Wilsons QC issues. This is indicative between the two different demos that I've tried - one liked, one didnt. The fear is that I'll like the recent demo, buy a pair, then get very different frames and not like them at all.

Of course, when I say that I enjoyed hitting with the BLXPS95, it should be known that I've never hit with the old "fedesque" 95 frames...

The sweetzones are primarily a function of swingweight, with twistweight and stiffness coming in a distant second and third. The TWU Power Potential data shows that there is a nice, tidy relationship between swingweight and Power Potential of 10 swingweight units = 1.0 Power Potential units. Looking only at the sweetzones (20%, 30%, 40%) makes it hard to compare sticks with very different swingweights. If you switch to the location view, you see that the 90 has Power Potential of 41.2% in the center of the stringbed and the 95, 38.8%. The swingweights of the specimens tested were 324 and 303, respectively. So we can add 2.1% to the 95's number to get 40.9%. In other words, this is what it would be if we added lead tape to bump the swingweight to 324. So matched, the 95's PP is slightly less than the 90, which is probably down to the slightly lower stiffness of the 95.

So the numbers are actually about what you'd expect. You can do the same addition at other impact zones above, below and to the sides of the stringbed center to project what the Power Potential would be with lead tape added, but it because a less precise approximation outside the center due to how twistweight and local stiffness change depending on lead tape location.

Anyway, Fed K's perceptions seem to belie all this, but then again he may be experiencing and reporting something quite different from the objective quality of Power Potential (Apparent Coefficient of Restitution).

Yeah, I would like that too. I don't think the measurements for the 90 are correct. I know the K90 measurements are correct, and TWU has that .25 inches narrower 21 inches from the buttcap than the PS90. I haven't measure the PS90, but I've seen them and didn't notice any difference in headshape.

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Thanks for your detailed reconstruction, corners. I was aware that the sweetzones of a racket are related to swingweight, but it is very instructive to see that you can explain the differences in the sweetzones between both rackets down to a T from their differences in swingweight. In other words, headsize indeed plays a negligible role in the size of the sweetzones.

The big question for me, then, is: where does the proverbial difference in 'forgiveness' between 90 and 95 sq in rackets come from??

If a 90 will have the same sized sweetzones as a 95 of the same swingweight, the only remaining factors I can think of
that could contribute to this difference in forgiveness are:

Effective width of the stringbed (TWUs 'spinwindow'), which is a function of the actual width of the stringbed, frame thickness and impact angle. This would determine the risk of 'framing' or 'shanking' the ball, especially in a topspin shot

Length of the main strings, this would affect the amount of 'resilience' of the stringbed as in how much it contributes to shotspeed. But it seems to me that this factor could easily be compensated for by lowering the stringbed tension in a 90 frame

I think the general consesus among playtesters, not just on this board, is that a 90 is less forgiving than a 95 (hence the desire for a PS95 that plays like a PS90...). Is this difference, then, attributable to only a difference in effective width of the stringbed? Even when you compare the PS95 with the K90, TWU lists spinwindows of 5.50 in for the PS95 and 5.45 in for the K90 (location withs of 9.13 in and 8.98 in, respectively). That's a difference of less than 1%! So you'd have a 1% higher risk of shanking with the K90 as compared to the PS95...

So what's going on here? Is the perceived difference in forgiveness between a 90 and a 95 mostly subjective? Is it because we know that the 90 has a smaller stringbed that we convince ourselves that it must be less forgiving? Is it because 90s tend to be more hefty than 95s (certainly not always true, I play with the 4D200T myself!)? What am I missing in my list above? Can you enlighten me on this one as well, corners?

Probably not, the PS90 blx is a much better racquet than the 95 though

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I like to look at the numbers too, but the above ^ is exactly how I feel. I couldnt seem to milk any advantage from a modded 95 over the 90...it wasnt even close really...the only sticks Ive used that kind of transcend the old rules of mass and play better than the specs are the 100 si yonex vcore and xi.

I have the BLX PS 90, and the PS 95. i put on a leather grip,and i wrapped a .5 oz ontop of the leather, and then an wilson perforated grip over it. my hand gets pretty damp when playing. will my sweat make the lead leech out?

I undertook the 95 experiment a few weeks ago before going out of town and didn't have bad results, actually. Stock frame weighed 11.7. Initially went with lead beneath grip and at 12 and frame felt a bit slugglish/off. Then went with six grams at the 7-inch mark beneath grip, about 2.5 grams total at 2 and 10, along with an overgrip on top of the Wilson Pro Hybrid. Frame weighs in at 12.4 total (strung with Silverstring) but swings lighter than that, as 12.4 is usually too much meat for me. ...

Pluses: I can hit cannon serves with this frame and it volleys sensationally.
Minuses: Pretty nice and controlled groundstrokes, but not walloping groundstrokes. Sometimes I'd go for the kill shot and the other guy got a stick on it. Also, some slices floated a bit more than I'm used to. But all in all, it still hit pretty consistently and like I said, serves, volleys and touch shots were outstanding

At one point I even brought out the experimental stick after losing a first set 6-3 and won the next two sets 0 and 2. Then went out of town for a couple weeks so haven't been playing a ton of tennis lately, but the frame is still in the bag for some further dabbling going forward.

I bought a PS100 this summer, which I weighted to around 11.25 oz. After a month of using it, my arm and shoulder were getting very stiff. I traded a guy for a PS95, and the stiffness went away. So, I would personally not recommend the PS100 as an arm-friendly racquet.

I have the BLX PS 90, and the PS 95. i put on a leather grip,and i wrapped a .5 oz ontop of the leather, and then an wilson perforated grip over it. my hand gets pretty damp when playing. will my sweat make the lead leech out?

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If ever you have some spare time to waste and a ruler at hand, I'd be very interested to know the exact widths of the stringbeds of your PS90 and PS95 at 21 inch from the butt to allow comparison with the TWU measurements I posted above. Thanks in advance!

I bought a PS100 this summer, which I weighted to around 11.25 oz. After a month of using it, my arm and shoulder were getting very stiff. I traded a guy for a PS95, and the stiffness went away. So, I would personally not recommend the PS100 as an arm-friendly racquet.

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Thanks! Deeply appreciated. I guess I'll go for the BLX Blade team instead. I'll just have to adjust to a bigger head.

Thanks, Kyrock! So what's your hands-on assessment? On your pics the PS95 appears to be about 1/4" wider than the PS90, whereas TWU lists the PS95 as 0.16" narrower than the PS90. Looks like TWU has made an error here...

Thanks, Kyrock! So what's your hands-on assessment? On your pics the PS95 appears to be about 1/4" wider than the PS90, whereas TWU lists the PS95 as 0.16" narrower than the PS90. Looks like TWU has made an error here...

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PS95 .16 narrower than the PS90? i think you might have it reversed Kaiser. I just remeasured it from inside stringbed and the PS95 is about .16 WIDER than the 90.

I think the BLX PS 9.1 90 is the most forgiving yet still packs a lot of power and is the best in the line of recent generations of Pro Staff racquets. I waiting to get a used one and try it out with natural gut mains and poly crosses ala Fed to see how it plays at such lower tensions.

The demo from TW came with a multi and it already felt pretty nice though it was a bit stiffer than my current PSTGT which could be due to the tension and also lack of natural gut hybrid setup.

Nope, rechecked it and the TWU shotmaker tool definitely lists the "Location width" for the PS90 as 9.29 inch and for the PS95 as 9.13 inch... Could be they mixed things up there, because for the BLX90 they list 8.82 inch and for the K90 8.98 inch (all at 21 inch from the butt)... How wide exactly did you measure the PS90 and PS95? I mean, not just the difference?

I bought a PS100 this summer, which I weighted to around 11.25 oz. After a month of using it, my arm and shoulder were getting very stiff. I traded a guy for a PS95, and the stiffness went away. So, I would personally not recommend the PS100 as an arm-friendly racquet.

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Are you sure? I read some of the comments about the 95 and the 100. They said that the PS 100 is more arm friendly than the 95. There is only a small difference in their stiffness.